= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
gjm comments on Stupid Questions June 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (195)
You don't need a whole group to choose to switch to agriculture; just one innovator to show that it works better and the others to not burn that person at the stake for doing it. I say agriculture; but it could be as simple as. I try to encourage this plant to grow more by spreading its seeds, Oh look we have lots of food-plant-X now. Or:
My point (which I am really not showing well) is that the early stages of agriculture are pretty easy to slip into if you have spare thinking space. And after you have them; what you do with your spare time is up to you...
Can one innovator really show that it works better? Especially back before agriculture got started, and hence before we started breeding plants that were well adapted to human needs. E.g., a lot of agriculture now is based on wheat, but wheat was a much less effective food plant before human intervention.
Almost by definition, "more complicated culture and a structured society" isn't a thing one person can try out on their own and demonstrate the superiority of. Probably some individual interventions along the path are, but I don't think we know that "pre-colonial indigenous people" didn't try any of them. (Do we?) And even those individual interventions -- if one of them produces (say) more fruit but at the cost of catching fewer deer, would it have been obvious whether it was a win?
One person to show that it is possible to co-operate with animals, and train them to follow you around for food; and the rest of people to not murder him for his tasty friends.
Once you have some agriculture; you can have more - spread out into other species of animal and plant - then you settle down. Once you have monoculture you need some kind of trading system between farming groups. When someone gets wise about bartering or inventing a representative currency you start to get civilisation... Or when someone "offers" to pick up a sword so others can keep farming...